


The Universe Would Turn

by DaraOakwise



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Thasmin if you want it, The Doctor isn’t here, or is she?, platonic if you don’t, post-episode s12e10: The Timeless Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaraOakwise/pseuds/DaraOakwise
Summary: Six weeks after losing the Doctor, Yaz sits up bolt upright in bed on the realization that there is an empty TARDIS parked around the corner. And Yaz formulates a rescue plan that may take her the rest of her life.
Relationships: The Doctor & The TARDIS, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 58





	The Universe Would Turn

PC Yasmin Khan paused outside the little house. A modest thing, like hundreds she’d seen before, that fit so perfectly into the neighborhood that your eyes practically slid over it, and you forgot you’d even seen it by the time your gaze had moved past it. A week ago she’d heard someone murmur as they walked by, a passing comment to a friend: “ _has that always been there?”_ Silly question; of course it had.

It hadn’t. It had been there about six months, sprung fully formed from thin air.

Yaz pulled her police hat off tiredly, walked to the door, and let herself in. A small sitting room, another door, and then into the control room of the timeship. A TARDIS. Not _the_ TARDIS. Like the Doctor, the wondrous ship inside the police box was capitalized and definite-articled in Yaz’s mind. But _a_ TARDIS, which had brought them safely home, and was sacred because it was the last place she’d seen the Doctor.

“Good evening,” she said to the ship, because it was only polite.

In the stark white interior, the TARDIS materialized a comfortable chair and a desk, along with some protein-laden snacks. Yaz sat, and opened the two books in front of her. “Now, where was I?” she asked herself, chewing on an almond.

After Gallifrey. After … ( _after_ _losing the Doctor_ ) the fam had settled hollowly back into their old lives. The three humans from the future were living with Graham and Ryan, and Yaz tried to drop by for dinner or tea as often as she could, just to soak in some of their wonder. 

“Earth,” Ravio had exclaimed over dinner last month, at peace after a lifetime of running and war. She, who had been among the last handful of humanity, was now surrounded by its billions, and it seemed to take her breath away. “Not New Earth. Not New New New Earth. Old Earth. The cradle. The legend. It exists, and I’m living on it!”

Her joy was a balm, as was her obvious blooming relationship with Graham, but there was a Doctor-shaped hole torn straight through Yaz’s soul. She tried to fill it, because the Doctor would have wanted her to. Back to policing, sorting out fair play in Sheffield, and helping Ryan set up his climate change foundation.

“We can still save the world, Yaz,” Ryan reminded her, the lesson of Orphan 55 burning inside him, and she envied him his passion. But Yaz could feel it, in her heart. A universe without the Doctor was _wrong._ And her universe, the universe of Yasmin Khan, was dreary.

Her mum was worried, and kept suggesting concerts and shows and clubs for Yaz to attend. Her sister was _terrified,_ and would barely let Yaz out of her sight. Her boss was glad to have her back, and was assigning Yaz to sort out supposedly complex Earth problems that would have thrilled her before, but which she could fix with her eyes closed. Yaz tried to make plans. Maybe she would apply to MI6. Or UNIT, which she’d heard rumblings was still out there; she’d received a vague email from a woman called Brigadier Stewart about the possibility of putting her “unique talents” to good work.

Six weeks after they had returned home from the worst loss that she’d ever experienced, still deep in mourning for that life and for that extraordinary person, Yaz had leapt out of her bed, thunderstruck by the realization that _there was a TARDIS parked a quarter mile from her house._ A time-and-spaceship. Which could, if she could learn how to fly it, take her back to save the Doctor. She was convinced that somewhere in space and time, she already had done it. Now, she just had to figure out how, the long way ‘round.

Upon that realization, Yaz had sprinted out of her flat, barely dressed, wearing two different shoes, straight to the TARDIS, which had bleeped at her crossly when she arrived. She’d felt a thought settle into her mind: _finally figured it out did you?_

Yaz had always been a bit skeptical about the Doctor’s assertions that a TARDIS was alive, but she believed now. Had to believe.

“Help me?” she had begged the ship, and a drawer had fallen open. A manual! … written in the indecipherable circles of Gallifrey. Yaz had nearly wept in despair until another drawer opened, with a title stamped on the front: _English to Gallifreyan Dictionary._

“You have got to be kidding me,” Yaz had said aloud to the ship. “I have to learn a new language _and_ how to fly you?”

Puzzlement and the thought: _so?_ had flitted through her thoughts. Yaz had sighed, and perched awkwardly on the edge of the console, and begun. The TARDIS either didn’t like to be sat upon, or took pity on her, because it materialized the desk and chair a week later. And slowly, painfully, Yaz started to put it together.

Yaz skimmed her notes on the earlier pages, English beneath the circles. Warnings first. Do not operate while intoxicated. Never operate without a license. Temporal engineering degree required. Beware of paradoxes. Do not cross your own timeline under any circumstances. Blah blah blah. 

_“Boring!”_ she could almost hear the Doctor say. Yaz knew what the Doctor would do—rip the warnings out and toss them into the sun with a Cheshire-cat grin. Yaz, more a rule follower, had dutifully translated, in case the words held something important. 

Next page: TARDIS controls. Much more interesting. Yaz took a breath and imagined that the Doctor was standing beside her. She wasn’t sure if it was the TARDIS, or the Gallifreyan, or her own longing, but when she opened them again she could practically see the Doctor leaning on the console, smiling at her. Ancient. Angry, sometimes, terrifying. Pierced through with grief, her eyes deep with loss. A little mad. But also so, so kind. Curious, delighted, wonderful, hopeful. Her Doctor.

Yaz stood and touched the controls, naming them, while the pretend Doctor watched. This TARDIS had a basic desktop theme, but Yaz had also been overlaying her new knowledge with her memories of the Doctor’s TARDIS—more whimsical, more than a touch silly. Like her pilot, come to think of it. But the functions were the same. She imagined the Doctor dancing around the controls, punching buttons. It had seemed random before, but Yaz was starting to grasp the logic. Shield, stabilizers, brakes, chameleon circuit, scanner, artron indicator, environmental monitor, power status, paradox warning, and on and on.

“Manual space-time coordinate input,” Yaz said, resting her hand on the final panel, and imagined the Doctor saying “ _exciting, isn’t it?_ ”

Yaz frowned. “Unless I am really misinterpreting your TARDIS controls, I don’t think you ever touched this,” Yaz said, and the not-there Doctor shrugged. Yaz grabbed the manual, already translated, and propped it on the controls to re-read the section. 

_Most space-time input is set via the telepathic connection between the ship and the pilot. However, if the telepathic circuit has been damaged or if precision piloting is needed, space-time coordinates may be set manually. Have care in overuse. Although the imprecision of telepathic piloting can be frustrating for new users, most TARDIS’s consider use of the manual system to be a violation of their autonomy._

“Explains why we always end up in the wrong place,” Yaz grumped at the Doctor in her head.

 _“Imagine you have a brilliant friend.”_ Yaz could almost hear the Doctor say. “ _And your friend has an airplane. One week you say to her ‘let’s go to New York,’ and it sounds fine to her, so off you go for Broadway and pizza and the Empire State Building. The next week you jump in her airplane and say ‘take me to Paris!’ You have no pressing reason to go to Paris. No appointment or dying Parisian grandmother. If you did, she’d take you. But just a passing whim? She doesn’t want to go to Paris. Wasn’t planning to take you to Paris at all. You’re not meant to be in Paris. Big party in Morocco! Well, party or alien invasion, one or the other. Are you going to demand Paris? Of course not.”_

“I just need to go to one place, Doctor,” Yaz replied. “Wherever _you_ are.”

You weren’t meant to steer a TARDIS, Yaz now understood. The controls were about everything else. Stabilization, shielding, defense, monitoring. Above all, a physical manifestation of a physic link. A way for a finite mind to access an infinite one. It had shaken Yaz, more than a little, when she realized the implications of the whimsy in the Doctor’s TARDIS controls. _This_ TARDIS was clinical, its controls basic and straightforward. Almost a training configuration, to be honest. A control system like the Doctor’s—a custard cream dispenser?!?—meant that she didn’t really need controls at all.

In Yaz’s head, the Doctor leaned against the crystalline console of her own ship, hair falling across her eyes. Hands moving, caressing; a pause, a soothing stroke. Not controlling, but _connecting_. The Doctor and the TARDIS, inseparable. The controls in the Doctor’s ship had very little function anymore; the Doctor piloted the ship with her mind. 

And on that realization, Yaz remembered the times the ship had careened, and tilted, tumbled and changed direction. The Doctor’s turmoil and agony should have been obvious. 

“ _Hey!”_ the absent Doctor complained. “ _It isn’t all grim. Sometimes I do it for fun. Other times I’m just distracted.”_

Well. Either way, Yaz wasn’t going to be piloting the ship with her mind. “I’m not telepathic, mate,” Yaz said aloud to the TARDIS. “So I’m going to apologize to you in advance. I’ll need to do it manually, once I figure out how.” She got the impression that the TARDIS understood.

Yaz nervously turned the next page of the manual. New chapter: _Placing Your TARDIS in the Time Vortex._ She’d spent a week and a half translating, reading and re-reading to be sure she’d got it right. “I’m really going to do this,” she told her imaginary friend, and the Doctor nodded in encouragement.

Yaz had practiced the moves a hundred times. She punched the instructions in on the controls, and her hands should have been shaking, but they were steady. She triple checked the inputs, then grasped the dematerialization lever. She looked down at it, and bit her lip, heart pounding wildly in her chest. Maybe not today. Maybe she needed more practice.

She felt the Doctor’s hand close over top of her own. The Doctor wasn’t generally the touching sort, but the rare, precious times when the Doctor had held her hand were imprinted on Yaz’s soul, and Yaz closed her eyes at the memory of it.

“ _Together,”_ Yaz thought she heard the Doctor say. “ _One, two, three,”_ and the TARDIS slipped silently off of the Earth.

“Yours always makes noise,” Yaz said aloud, puzzled, until a light dawned. “You leave the handbrake on!”

The imaginary Doctor wrinkled her nose. “ _Kind of an in-joke between the TARDIS and me, after all these years. Watch the shielding, Yaz. The Vortex is a dangerous place. Stabilizers, quick! There. Good.”_

Yaz checked the screens. Stable in the Time Vortex. “I did it!” she exclaimed in wonder, and punched a fist in the air. But the euphoria quickly drained away. This was the tiniest baby step. She hadn’t traveled at all in space, to say nothing of time. She had no real idea, in all the universe of things that could be, _where_ the Doctor was. Gallifrey—where and whenever that was. She’d seen the Doctor scanning for the Master, so it was possible, but that might have been a modification that the Doctor had built. And for all Yaz knew, maybe there were thousands, or millions, of versions of the Doctor existing in points of time and space. Maybe all she had to do was find one of them, and they could help. And maybe (she thought despairingly of her non-existent degree in temporal engineering) that would break the universe.

Yaz looked up at the imaginary Doctor. “I’m beginning to understand the whole ‘Time Lord’ thing,” she said. “I think you may have to be about half god to work this out.”

On the other side of the console, something about her not-there friend had changed. Yaz knew that the Doctor she imagined in her head was a child’s chalk drawing of the real thing, that Doctor’s face was a memory and her voice was only Yaz’s own internal monologue. But here, in the Vortex, the threshold of all of space and time, the lines and shadows filled, deepening with the colors of the universe, and a sense of a mighty and ancient presence filled the room.

“ _My brilliant girl,_ ” the Doctor said. “ _My fierce, unstoppable Yaz.”_

Yaz’s eyes pricked with tears. She knelt on the floor, and rested her head wearily against the cool controls. “I’m going to find you Doctor, I promise. It just may take longer than I hoped. Maybe my whole life.”

The Doctor came around the console, and knelt beside her. “ _Oh Yaz,”_ the Doctor said, and Yaz could feel a tentative hand on her hair, the Doctor’s breath on her neck. “ _I am_ _undying and eternal. I have walked the universe from the beginning, and I have walked it at the end. How long do you have left in your blazing and beautiful life? Eighty years, if you are very very lucky? I can spend eighty years distracted by something shiny. I would not have you waste your precious days on me.”_

Yaz looked up at the Doctor. “I won’t abandon you,” she insisted.

“ _I_ _am patient,”_ the Doctor said. “ _I can survive, outlive and out-wait anything. I’ve done it before; I’ll do it again. And come ‘round to pick you up again, right on time.”_

“That’s just it, Doctor,” Yaz said, voice ringing with conviction, and stood. The Doctor stood too, kind eyes locked on Yaz’s own. “I’m beginning to understand. If you didn’t need my help, you’d have been back already. But if you need me to find you, the TARDIS wouldn’t let you come back early, until I’ve figured this out. Paradox, right? Every day you are not here proves I’m on the right path.”

The Doctor reached out gently and cupped Yaz’s face, thumbs brushing her temples, then leaned forward and kissed her with aching tenderness. A sob caught in Yaz’s throat, and the Doctor leaned back just enough to study Yaz’s face, her gaze filled with grief and pride, before tucking a strand of hair behind Yaz’s ear. Yaz closed her eyes, and the Doctor stepped back. Then, although the imagined Doctor was still there, Yaz felt eternity leave the room. 

“ _Or, the other option is that I haven't come back because I’m just dead_ ,” the imaginary Doctor said with a shrug, and Yaz snorted. 

“If you were really here before, you’re not here now,” Yaz said, certain. “Because that didn’t sound like the Doctor. That sounded like me.”

Yaz turned the next page of the manual and started to translate. _Traveling in Space and Time._ “I’m coming, Doctor,” Yaz promised. “I swear it.” 

**Author's Note:**

> If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.
> 
> Emily Brontë


End file.
